The purpose driven life (a review) - Chapter 2 - You Are Not an Accident

Here is the third instalment of my quest to review the entire "Purpose Driven Life" chapter by chapter.

Chapter two opens with a quote from Isaiah (Warren sure likes the old testament), but the second quotation in the header is by Albert Einstein, "God doesn't play dice." Note the full stop at the end. The actual quote according to Albert Einstein Quotes is "God does not play dice with the universe." Quite a different meaning, no? Einstein also referred to god in the sense of the great unknown, not in the sense that Warren and his fundie friends use the term, as in jehova.

The rest of the chapter is seriously mystifying. It's all about how god has a plan for everyone, every day of everyone's life has been planned in the smallest detail since the beginning of time. This directly contradicts his words from two pages ago "You may choose your career, your spouse, your hobbies, and many other parts of your life" WTF? That is some serious cognitive dissonance

He pulls out the fine tuning argument, by quoting a senior research fellow in human genetics from New Zealand that says the cosmos was specifically designed to bring human life about. It seems to be a typical fundie trick to try this appeal to authority, where someone who is a recognised authority on one field should now be able to provide an authoritative opinion about another. This guy is a biologist, not a cosmologist or astronomer. You may as well ask my opinion about beekeeping.

Now we get to my personal favourite quote thus far "If there were no god, we would all be 'accidents', the result of astronomical random chance in the universe. You could stop reading this book, because life would have no purpose or meaning or significance."

What rot! His argument is that a lack of a belief in his god automatically leads to nihilism. I vehemently disagree with such bigoted and small minded crap. I find meaning in many aspects of my life. In my interaction with friends and family, my relationship with my wife and children, my performance (or lack of it) in various sports and hobbies, and from my work. All of this without a magic sky fairy to give me the disease (original sin) and then offer me the cure in return for 10% of my income and lots of my time, all the while believing LIES.

What about the people in the world that find meaning and purpose from Buddhism, extreme ironing, planking or bicycle tricks? Are any of these more or less valid that trying to validate yourself by believing in bronze age nonsense?

"He pulls out the fine tuning argument, by quoting a senior research fellow in human genetics from New Zealand that says the cosmos was specifically designed to bring human life about."

This is one of the most annoying things someone can say to me. During a conversation with my sister, she brought up Ben Stein's DVD that's anti-evolution. I stopped her before she could speak anymore and said, "You mean you're getting your biology information from a guy who had a degree in accounting?" She tried to say that B.S is a "smart person" and to that I replied, "The only B.S knows about biology is that clear eyes fixes dry eyes." She shut up after that.

"If there were no god, we would all be 'accidents', the result of astronomical random chance in the universe. You could stop reading this book, because life would have no purpose or meaning or significance."

Wow.

I really don't think I'd be able to get to the end of this book. Good job making it to chapter 2!